According to the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) data released by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Friday, hedge funds and money managers slashed their net positions in copper futures for the first time in eight weeks.

Data reported through December 20th showed the non-commercial futures contracts in copper futures, traded by large speculators and hedge funds, totaled a net position of 52,026 contracts. This was down by -9,089 contracts compared to the previous week which had a total of 61,115 net contracts.

The commercial traders’ position, including hedgers or traders’, totaled a net position of -52,552 contracts last week. This is a weekly gain of 8,118 contracts from the total net of -60,670 contracts reported the previous week.

Technically on the charts, copper has broken consolidation phase to resume downside. Price action is currently holding by strong support at 2.445 which is trendline and 50-DMA. Break below 2.445 support zone is likely to see test of 2.40 (50% Fib) and then 2.327 (61.8% Fib).